Luxembourg Stock Exchange becomes a Climate Bonds Partner

08.06.2016 - 17:11

The Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE), the leading Stock Exchange for international bond listing, becomes a Climate Bonds Partner, further strengthening Luxembourg’s role as an international center for climate finance.

In 2007, LuxSE kick-started the Green Bond market with the listing of the first Green Bond ever, issued by the European Investment Bank (EIB). Since then, it has continued to endorse collective action towards the transition to a low carbon economy. Most recently, on the 18th of February this year, LuxSE achieved an important milestone in this mission with the listing of the 100th Green Bond. Luxembourg has already a 50% market share of all Green Bonds listings worldwide.

The Climate Bond Partners program, created by the investor-focused not-for-profit Climate Bonds Initiative, is aimed at developing initiatives to grow investment in climate solutions and help define policy agendas for sector, country and sub-national programs.

“Green finance is not a passing fashion, it is a real game changer. We believe it will become the foundation of future capital markets. Green bonds will be a central feature of this new marketplace. But for this to happen we will need more standardized approaches. The Luxembourg Exchange looks forward to working closely together with the Climate Bonds Initiative in this respect”, said Robert Scharfe, CEO of LuxSE.

The 100 trillion USD global debt market is expected to become a dominant source of green capital. In this context, LuxSE intends to encourage new issuances and is committed to invest in promoting high quality standards specific to the asset class.

“The Luxembourg Stock Exchange and the Climate Bonds Initiative share a common vision about the importance of growing the role of international green finance in addressing climate change – we both believe green will be central to capital markets in the future”, adds Sean Kidney, CEO of Climate Bonds Initiative.